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Dealing with a referee that asks you to do things your paper already does?

In our October “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

What is your best strategy for dealing with a referee point that is not really a point at all? Here is the background: I submitted my paper to a leading specialist journal. The referee devotes a substantial part of the report to saying that I should engage more with the (semi-)relevant literature. They also wrote a dedicated section saying that I must discuss one particular, very prominent philosopher’s work. The problem is that I did exactly what the referee recommends: the paper already has a separate section devoted to the relevant accounts. Besides that leading philosopher, the referee also told me to cite another philosopher who is already discussed in that section. I am not reading the report merely from my own perspective. Please trust me, or assume, that I have already done a substantial amount of what the referee asked for. How should I deal with this situation when responding to their worries? What would be your best strategy?

This seems strange to me. Although I don’t know all of the details, I can’t help but wonder whether a referee report like this might be AI generated (either that or the referee didn’t bother to read much of the paper?).

Have other readers ever experienced anything like this? Any thoughts on how the OP should handle it?

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3 responses to “Dealing with a referee that asks you to do things your paper already does?”

  1. Anonymous

    I had a paper with a referee misinterpreting it, and also wanting me to incorporate something I allready had argued for. I had the impression that he only read parts of the paper too. At the end, I was honest in my letter without calling him out. I took everything that was important and I wrote so, and I clarified the misunderstanding and directly gave praise afterwards for a point he made. With the point that was allready in the paper, I just wrote where I argue for it without mentioning that it was there before. “That is an important point! I argue for it here and here. And I inserted a footnote here.” Would probably do it like that in your case too. Worked out fine for me.

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    1. Anonymous

      that’s the way to go! I think it is actually easier to revise&reply when some of what the referee asked is already there. As for what happened, the referee may have skipped the section inadvertently or was distracted, or the extent of the engagement in the section wasn’t clear to the referee for whatever reason (reading too fast?). Maybe make the goal of the section even more obviously connected to this literature, and point this out to the referee, and job done!

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  2. Anonymous

    While you can take the approach of the above commenter, I think it’s quite risky–they’re liable to find something they don’t like about your discussion to save face. So what I’d do is revise the area where you discuss those folks in light of the reviewer’s particular comments–however lightly or heavily–and then say something like “Reviewer prompts me to engage with X. The revision does so on pp. xx-xxx,” and you mark the whole section in whatever format you’re using to mark revisions. Marking some sentences that haven’t been revised is ok, because often the flow of an entire section is different based on whatever changes you made. This isn’t lying, but it will lead the reviewer to believe that you were responsive even if the revisions weren’t entirely necessary. Very few reviewers will check back against the original in that scenario. And even if they do, they’ll see that you revised the section to address their particular comments, and that will make them happy. Best of luck!

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